As a sucker for audio and radio dramas, something I've lately found to be fun to listen to are Star Wars Actual Plays. An Actual Play is "a reference to the recording or transcription of a session of play into a form intended to be read by a third party." Basically, as it applies to Star Wars, an Actual Play would be an audio recording of people playing either the West End Games d6 Star Wars RPG, the WOTC D20 Star Wars RPG, the updated Saga edition of WOTC's SW RPG, or the new Edge of the Empire Star Wars RPG.

The best one that I've found which was a lot of fun to listen to was called "The Power of the Dark Side," which was played by a group of five players set during SWTOR. Three of the players are Sith, one is a smuggler, and one is a Mandalorian (and undercover Jedi, though this doesn't really go anywhere). They put the prologue up on youtube:

It's a whopping 9:09:43 seconds long, but definitely worth a listen if you enjoy radio/audio dramas, and doubly so if you enjoy podcasts. The GM of the game is an EU reader, and extensively researched the EU prior to the campaign. They also use the music of John Williams (and one track from TCW) and the sound effects of Ben Burtt, which really gives it the radio drama feel, in addition to using some voice acting off and on, as well as the GM and some of the players putting on voices for the characters. Since they're playing a game, they also joke around and stuff, which makes it the best of both worlds IMO as far as being like an audio drama and a podcast.

The guys do a regular podcast "about games and the people who play them," so after the conclusion of the Actual Play they also did an episode to recap it and talk about it, including behind the scenes motivations and so forth. I'll note that they do occasionally use foul language or discuss crude subject matter in their joking around. They also use music, but theirs was played at the table, whereas the music and sound effects of "Power of the Dark Side" was added in post-production.

I also just started listening to one I found last night which is called "All Wings Report In," which is centered around an X-Wing squadron. The GM took inspiration from the X-Wing novels, but it's not as well researched as "Power of the Dark Side." Arvel Crynyd is a Bothan in it! They have some pretty vulgar stuff in it as well.

Lastly (for now, depending upon if people want me to post more!), here's one that I haven't yet fully listened to, but is probably really funny, and set in the Legacy era.

I like these guys' Actual Plays, though I mostly listen to their World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu ones, and AFAIK this is the only Star Wars Actual Play that they've done. It's called "The Ballad of Kevin Starchaser" and I don't think, from what I have listened to, that they take it as seriously as the "Power of the Dark Side," but they're funny guys so. Plus it's Legacy era.

Anyway, I definitely recommend that fans of podcasts or audio dramas at the very least listen to "Power of the Dark Side," because it has really good production values for an Actual Play and is really fun.

Thanks!

Posted: Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:14 am

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Gamerstable EricPadawan

Joined: 26 Jun 2013Posts: 1

Thanks for the plug Crash!

Power of the Darkside was my favorite to do, mostly because I love Star Wars and the EU.

It has set the bar for future actual plays (we prefer the term "Roleplay Dramas", but that's because we are pretentious snobs) that we do.